tlug: Re: Japanese input

[Matt Gushee <matt@example.com>]

Whoa, baby!

Karl-Max has thrown down the gauntlet for real! And I'm going to pick
it up.

First of all, I concede that kanji are a pain. It takes a long time to 
learn them, and they create endless problems for programmers. That
much I think everyone can agree on. And further: the Japanese writing
system, with its 3 (4 if you count romaji) separate scripts, is almost 
sadistically complex. So getting rid of kanji seems like a very
rational idea, BUT ...

* Kanji are beautiful. Dammit, they're beautiful, and I though I
suppose that's not considered to be worth much these days ... well,
there's no sense in arguing this point, I guess. But my values say we
weren't put here on earth just to be efficient and maximize "value"
(in the utilitarian or capitalistic sense) ... though perhaps we were
put here to experience the inevitable tension between beauty and
efficiency.

* Kanji are extremely efficient carriers of meaning. A glyph is not
just a glyph, saying what it says ... it's also a microcosm of
meanings, overt and covert, carrying echoes of Toyotomi Hideyoshi and
Lao Tzu. The density and richness of meaning in one Chinese character
is far beyond anything an alphabetic language is capable of. That's
how Chinese-character poetry can be so concise, yet so powerful
... for those who appreciate such things. That's why Chinese books are 
thinner than their English counterparts -- saving trees, guys --
though Japanese books are weighed down by kana.

* Kanji were adopted in Japan, not only because Chinese was
fashionable, but because they were an effective means of communication 
among East Asian nations. Even if their speech was mutually
incomprehensible, educated men throughout the region could communicate 
through writing. They still can, to an extent. Give a Japanese person
a copy of Renmin Ribao, or a Chinese a copy of Asahi Shimbun, and
chances are they can at least get a general idea what it's about. On a 
personal note, when I met my wife four years ago, there were a lot
things we just couldn't communicate about by speaking. Where would we
be without kanji, I wonder?

* Arguably, the Japanese phonetic repertoire is too narrow to
represent adequately using only kana. Eliminating kanji would make it
that much harder to distinguish similar-sounding words.

* Kanji are great for second language learners ... IMHO. No, let me
rephrase that: kanji are great for *third* language learners ... when
your second and third languages are Chinese and Japanese, as mine
are. Since I've never tried learning Japanese without knowing kanji,
I'll never know how much difference it made -- but I can say for sure
it was a big one.

If anything should be eliminated it's kana -- especially
katakana. That would have the beneficial side-effect of improving
Japanese students' English pronunciation -- since for the first time,
schoolchildren would have to deal with the actual sounds of English
words :-)

Bottom line: kanji are a useful, beautiful, valuable means of
communication. The fact that they don't get along too well with
computers is just too bad.

Whew. Had no idea I would get so worked up about this. I feel better
now -- hope you do, too ;-)

Matt Gushee
Oshamanbe, Hokkaido
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